Massive amounts of data now detail how religion influences and is influenced by other aspects of one’s personal and social life. Most notably, research continues to examine religion’s effects on mental health and its numerous pernicious social dispositions, especially religion’s role in fostering intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry (see Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993). Recent research also explores religion’s impact on more prosocial dispositions, namely the extent to which religion increases concern for others in need and the desire to relieve those needs (Wilson & Janoski, 1995). Many reviews report significant trends and even suggest conclusive links between religion and specific psychological and social dispositions (see Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001).
Despite important findings that have emerged from the study of religion’s place in peoples’ lives, the nature of religion’s influences on some periods of human development is ill explored and frequently overlooked (Trusty & Watts, 1999). Research has yet to focus systematically on the relationship between religion and adolescents’ developmental outcomes (c.f. Wallace & Forman, 1998). The general failure to examine the potential peculiarities of religion’s roles in adolescents’ lives does not mean that research has ignored religion’s role in adolescence altogether. When researchers do examine religion’s roles, however, their analyses tend to assume positive effects—that is, they highlight how religious participation, experiences, beliefs, and values produce beneficial outcomes, such as reduced rates of delinquency (See Benda, 1995; Johnson, Jang, Larson, & Li, 2001; Baier & Wright, 2001). The focus on positive outcomes is not accidental; the empirical study of adolescence emerged as the study of religion turned its attention to religion’s positive effects. Much of the study of adolescence devotes itself to identifying and preventing dispositions deemed harmful in adulthood. The broader study of the impact of religion on psychological and social dispositions suggests, however, that the focus on religion’s salubrious effects on adolescent development presents an incomplete picture. Religion may also negatively shape communal, familial, and individual experiences.
Although it may seem important to consider religion as both a positive and a negative influence, the trend toward focusing on its positive impact makes it difficult to examine religion’s negative effects. Much more controversy surrounds research that identifies negative outcomes than attaches to research that finds positive links. More important, however, there is much less research on religion’s problematic influences on adolescent outcomes than on its benefits. As a result, a comprehensive analysis of religion’s role in adolescents’ experiences must rely heavily on literature on adolescent development that has not traditionally been classified as belonging to either the psychology or the sociology of religion, the two dominant fields that empirically study religion. Broader research on adolescence and the influences on it, then, must serve as the organizing context for understanding the nature of religion’s influences on adolescent development. Although the approach may be necessary given the state of the field, even if there were more research on the specific influence of religion on adolescents, the research would be understood best in the context of our broader understanding of adolescence.
Studies that examine religious influences on adolescents most consistently focus on adolescents’ own religious orientations, rather than on religious influences on the social environments in which adolescents find themselves. That research reveals that, compared to their less religious peers, religious adolescents seemingly not only exhibit a heightened concern for others but also behave in ways that do not place undue burdens on themselves. Given that analyses focus on adolescents’ own religiosity, the findings appear quite powerful and lead many to conclude that addressing social ills requires increasing adolescents’ religiosity (DiIulio, Larson, & Johnson, 1999). Although such conclusions may be premature, especially given that what precisely constitutes positive adaptations and healthy social orientations remains controversial (see Levesque, 2002), this research orientation has produced at least four major areas of adolescent research that highlight the tendency among religious adolescents to adopt more prosocial and socially desirable orientations.
Delinquency research most often provides evidence of religious adolescents’ concern for themselves and for abiding by societal prescriptions. Adolescents who hold religious beliefs and participate in religious activities tend to engage in less criminal and delinquent activity (Stark, 1996; Welch, Tittle, & Petee, 1991; Rodell & Benda, 1999). For example, research typically finds an inverse relationship between religiosity and use of numerous types of drugs, ranging from cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and amphetamines to depressants (Bahr & Hawks, 1995; Cochran, 1993; Free, 1994; Newcomb, Maddahian, Skager, & Bentler, 1987; Bahr, Maughan, Marcos, & Li, 1998). The most robust findings emerge from research that indexes the multiple aspects of religiosity and religious affiliation. On average, adolescents are more likely to turn away from drug use if they frequently attend religious services, report that religion is important to them, and affiliate with religious denominations that explicitly prohibit drug use (Miller, Davies, & Greenwald, 2000; Wallace & Williams, 1997; Amey, Albrecht, & Miller, 1996; Cochran, 1991)—all consistent relationships found across many religious denominations (Amoateng & Bahr, 1986; Barnes, Farrell, & Banerjee, 1994). Importantly, studies also report negative relationships between religiosity and many other specific forms of delinquent activity, such as decreased likelihood of carrying weapons, getting into fights, and driving under the influence of alcohol (Wallace & Forman, 1998; Donahue, 1995; Evans, Cullen, Dunaway, et al., 1996; Free, 1994). Generally, then, adolescents identified as more religious are less likely to place their health at risk by engaging in delinquent behavior.
Research on adolescents’ sexual risk taking and romantic relationships also reveals that religiosity increases adolescents’ tendencies to abide by conventional rules and to place themselves at less risk for negative developmental outcomes. Most notably, highly religious adolescents initiate sexual activity later, have fewer sexual partners, and engage in sexual intercourse less often than their less religious peers (Thornton, 1985; Cooksey, Rindfuss, & Guilkey, 1996; Forste & Heaton, 1988; Kahn, Rindfuss, & Guilkey, 1990; Studer & Thornton, 1987; Thornton & Camburn, 1989). Likewise, religious adolescents tend to hold different sexual values; although simply viewing oneself as religious may not affect some sexual attitudes (see Donnelly, Duncan, Goldfarb, & Eadie, 1999), intrinsically religious adolescents—those whose religion shapes their everyday actions—do hold more conservative sexual attitudes (Reed & Myers, 1991). As a result, for example, these adolescents are less likely to approve of premarital sex, abortion, and contraceptive use—all of which decreases the chances that they will engage in these behaviors (Marsiglio & Shehan, 1993; Boggess & Bradner, 2000; Brewster, Cooksey, Guilkey, & Rindfuss, 1998). Religious participation and orientations, then, tend to have significant net effects on adolescents’ sexual attitudes and outcomes in ways deemed more healthy for individual adolescents and society.
The extent to which religious adolescents adopt less risky social orientations also finds clear expression in their approach to schooling and academic achievement. Religious adolescents generally are more attached to schools and earn better grades (Montgomery & Francis, 1996; Zern, 1985). Religious commitment also improves students’ chances of living up to their ability levels, as measured by the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) (Zern, 1987, 1989). The results hold true within specific religious and social groups. For example, many studies report a positive correlation between the degree of religious commitment and academic achievement among Christian high school students (Koubek, 1984; Brody, Stoneman, & Flor, 1996); others find that religious private school students generally outperform the general population not only because of the religious orientations of those schools but also because of the religious commitment of the students (Sander, 1996). The general rule, then, is that more religious students outperform less religious students in academic achievement; these results seem unaffected by gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial minority status, or attendance at religious schools (Jeynes, 1999).
The finding that religious students adopt more socially exemplary orientations gains support from research that examines adolescents’ moral development and prosocial activities. Religious adolescents tend to score higher on available tests of moral development (Kedem & Cohen, 1987). Likewise, religious adolescents tend to act in ways that reveal more prosocial commitment and concern for others (Donahue, 1995; Perry & McIntire, 1994). Most notably, parochial school students who report positive attitudes about religion consistently have been found to engage in more noncompulsory volunteer work (see Forliti & Benson, 1986). In a comprehensive, nationally representative survey of adolescents, 74 percent of high school seniors who said that religion was important to them also engaged in community service on a monthly or more frequent basis, while only 25 percent of their nonreligious peers engaged in similar service (Youniss, McLellan, & Yates, 1999). Thus, students who say religion is important in their lives are almost three times more likely to do service than students who report that religion is insignificant to them. For those interested in fostering civic and political involvement, these findings are quite significant. The development of a service-orientation in adolescence increases the chances that the orientation will continue in adulthood, and religious participation by adolescents has been shown to predict the extent to which parents and communities can foster that orientation (Smith, 1999).
Although this line of research has yet to examine other areas in which religiosity and religion can impact adolescents’ experiences and outcomes, it does seem fair to conclude that research that focuses explicitly on adolescents’ religiosity and developmental outcomes supports the popular assumption that religion can be a protective factor against numerous negative dispositions. Many adolescents who do not engage in risk-related behaviors also report living by their religious beliefs and accepting the proscriptions of their faith. On average, adolescents who exhibit religious behavior and find religion important are less likely than other adolescents to engage in problem-related, high-risk behaviors and are more likely to engage in behaviors that promote long-term well-being. That religion may present an important protective factor against risk is not surprising, given the current understanding that adolescents’ high or low risk-taking tendencies characterize their general approach to social interactions. Socially concerned adolescents who respect authority and tradition tend to engage in less problem behavior. The converse also is true: problem adolescents tend to exhibit multiple problems and engage in many risky behaviors (e.g., delinquent adolescents tend to engage in sexual risk taking, do poorly in school, and reject some forms of authority, perhaps including religious traditions) (Levesque, 2002). Adolescents’ religious beliefs and attitudes, then, seemingly infuse adolescents’ social orientations in many ways deemed beneficial to themselves, their close relationships, and their communities.
Some commentators and nonbelievers express negative attitudes toward particular religions or religious beliefs. Few, however, empirically explore how adolescents’ religious views and practices may effect negative developmental outcomes. Despite researchers’ failure to provide rigorous empirical data, the available evidence does support claims that religious beliefs and practices can produce destructive consequences. These consequences typically arise when adolescents become involved in nonmainstream religions and when mainstream religions’ practices produce unexpectedly harmful effects. Understanding these negative consequences generally requires moving beyond adolescents’ reported religiosity and focusing on religious environments themselves, an approach that some believe to be more objective (see Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993).
Two examples help illustrate the manner in which adolescents involved with nontraditional religions may be at risk for unhealthy outcomes. The first derives from the increasing interest in adolescents’ involvement in witchcraft, the occult, and Satanism. Researchers associate these experiences with adolescents’ religious and spiritual needs and link these nonmainstream religious experiences to problem behavior. For example, research has examined the extent to which adolescents admitted to mental health or juvenile justice institutions engage in some form of Satanism and has found that from 5 percent to 10 percent of adolescents accept and practice these beliefs (Burket, Myers, Bradford, & Carrera, 1994; Damphousse & Crouch, 1992). Although studies of adolescents in need of mental health and other services have found negative correlations between adolescent health and religious beliefs, some authors view teens’ involvement in these religious beliefs and practices more as signs of rebellion than as true religious experiences (Emerson & Syron, 1995). They understand these ritualistic and spiritual quests less as pathology or criminal activity than as responses to the dominant society’s religious beliefs (see Lowney, 1995). Yet, the general belief is that involvement in religious cults that indoctrinate, isolate, and alienate individuals from family and community members fosters negative mental and physical health (see Curtis & Curtis, 1993; Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001). Regardless of one’s interpretation of the role of occult experiences in adolescence, it does appear that those experiences at least reveal the possibly negative consequences of adolescent religiousness and, equally important, the challenges adolescents face in their responses to more mainstream religions.
In addition to Satanistic and other occult experiences, nonmainstream religions may champion beliefs and actions that outsiders can see as abusive. Most notably, new religious groups frequently have been accused of committing acts of physical child abuse (Ellison & Bartowski, 1995; Singer, 1996), including ritualized child sexual abuse (Richardson, 1999). Abusive practices, however, are not limited to fringe groups; mainstream religions also have been charged with perpetuating beliefs that result in the sexual abuse of children, as seen in controversies regarding female circumcision (see Levesque, 2001) but more obvious in the literature that finds complex correlations between certain religious beliefs and the rate of domestic violence (Ellison, Bartowski, & Anderson, 1999; Ammons, 1999; Burris & Jackson, 1999) and claims that church patriarchies increase the risk that leaders will abuse children (Kennedy, 2000). Equally controversial are differences in religious groups’ use of spiritual healing rather than more generally accepted medical practices. Most notably, a leading and highly publicized study reported a high incidence of child deaths in families that eschewed medical care in favor of faith healing (Asser & Swan, 1998). Although many outsiders may view the latter practices as abusive, many others argue that they are not, a point supported by the existence of many child welfare law exemptions for spiritual healing (see Levesque, 2000b). As expected, these findings remain quite controversial, but their existence at least suggests that religious beliefs and practices may evoke debatable results.
Despite the focus on new and nonmainstream religions, it is important to consider the extent to which dominant religions also may foster potentially harmful parenting practices. As suggested earlier, mainstream religious teachings and practices may harm adolescents. By far the most controversial example, one yet to be resolved, is the conflict between the approval by contemporary fundamentalist Protestants of corporal punishment and the known destructive consequences of physical punishment (see Greven, 1991; Capps, 1992). Researchers have associated key tenets of evangelical theology with parental support and use of corporal punishment (Weihe, 1990; Ellison, Bartoski, & Segal, 1996; Ellison & Sherkat, 1993b; Gershoff, Miller, & Holden, 1999) and have also linked corporal punishment to family violence, in the form of violence against children and, when the children themselves reach adulthood, violence against adults (Straus, 1994; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997). The extent to which rationales for supporting corporal punishment remain linked to conservative religious values, even when research indicates that many religious groups support corporal punishment and many conservative Protestant groups spurn it (Ahn, 1994), suggests that certain religious beliefs can gain and retain social dominance despite their links to potential harm.
In addition to instilling particular views of parenting, certain religious groups have been seen as problematic because they foster certain views of morality and seek to impact adolescents’ personal relationships, those of nonadherents. Efforts by religious groups to influence education in public schools provide a clear example. Few question that religious groups that espouse moral traditionalism have had an impact on the education of adolescents, as revealed by their highly contentious support for the banning of books they view as immoral in public schools (see Tamney & Johnson, 1997). More recently, however, these views have become even more controversial as certain religious groups have vigorously opposed comprehensive sex education programs offered by public schools in response to trends in adolescent sexual behavior. Many commentators who have reported on the public schools’ inability to address adolescents’ sexual needs (especially those of sexual minorities) blame the failure of sex education programs on the opposition of conservative religious groups (Simson & Sussman, 2000; for a review, see Levesque, 2000a). Less obvious negative outcomes are evident from the investigations of religiosity’s impact on sexual relationships. As we have seen, less religious adolescents report more sexual activity. Although these findings seem to point to a benefit of religiosity, the research actually identifies a less healthy outcome, since adolescents who are more religious are more likely to engage in risky sexual activity when they do engage in sexual activity. For example, many researchers have noted that strong religious beliefs relate to a decreased likelihood of practicing “safe sex,” particularly the failure to use condoms effectively to prevent diseases and unwanted pregnancies (see Zaleski & Schiaffino, 2000). Whether religious and nonreligious adolescents engage in the same risky practices (given that religious and nonreligious adolescents present differences in age of initiation of sexual activity and in the nature of their relationships), religiosity apparently presents a risk factor for unsafe sexual practices among sexually active adolescents. Despite the controversies that surround the imposition of particular religious beliefs on educational efforts, then, it seems fair to conclude that religious beliefs and traditions impact sexual activities and may place adolescents at risk for negative outcomes.
Religious organizations’ views of what constitutes appropriate moral behavior and relationships also may impact adolescents negatively to the extent that they shape models of achievement. There are clear limits to the many positive links between religiosity and education. Two examples are again illustrative. The first example is the rise in the home schooling movement as a result of parents’ religiosity and in the increasing popularity of sectarian schools (Levesque, 2002). Important commentaries suggest that these forms of schooling may improperly constitute a process of indoctrination that instills prejudice and intolerance in children and produces adults ill equipped to compete in a secular marketplace or to enter higher education (see Peshkin, 1986; Buss, 2000; Dwyer, 1998). Whether there is empirical support for these commentaries remains to be determined, especially given some sectarian schools’ abilities to foster academic success (Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993) and prosocial commitments (Youniss, McLellan, & Yates, 1999). Regardless of the empirical findings, however, it does seem that some religious groups may foster prejudicial beliefs, and some adolescents—and, eventually, society—may suffer from their not having had particular social experiences (Minow, 1999; Buss, 2000).
The second example of religious organizations’ impact on adolescents’ achievement relates to the manner in which some religious views stifle educational opportunities. For example, conservative Christians hold two views that could limit adolescents’ educational attainment: they may be opposed to certain secular forms of education, especially those based on scientific and humanistic values (see Ellison & Musick, 1995), and they may hold traditional gender role values, including the belief that women should restrict their activities to the home (c.f. Peek, Lowe, & Williams, 1991). These two views impact adolescents’ schooling and their eventual educational attainment (Darnell & Sherkat, 1997). The relative impact of these values, however, varies according to the depth of the adolescents’ own fundamentalism (see Sherkat & Darnell, 1999). When both parents and children adopt fundamentalist values, parents’ fundamentalism positively impacts adolescents’ academic achievement, regardless of whether the adolescent is male or female. Adolescent males who are fundamentalists, however, receive greater boosts than females. An even greater difference arises when the adolescents do not hold fundamentalist values: male adolescents are not significantly hampered by their parents’ views, while girls are clearly negatively impacted by having fundamentalist parents (Sherkat & Darnell, 1999). Religious views, then, impact adolescents’ educational pursuits, in terms of both the nature and the eventual level of education attained.
Although the bulk of studies that find negative influences of religion on adolescents’ development tend to focus on religious institutions themselves, research that focuses on individuals’ own religiosity also reports problematic links. Research on coping provides clear examples of ways in which religiosity may increase the risk of problematic outcomes. Many religious coping styles have been identified as maladaptive—responses that seem to match poorly the features and requirements of specific stressful situations. Most notably, coping in collaboration with a divine other seems healthy, but passively leaving the responsibility for resolving crises entirely up to divine intervention seems problematic (Pargament, 1997). Likewise, those who develop “righteous anger,” pray for divine vengeance, and feel abandoned by divine forces evince problematic responses to crises (see Pargament, 1997). Problematic results also may arise when social pressures within religious congregations foster social norms that may increase the negative consequences of certain stressors. For example, many religious groups frame problem behavior as sin and ascribe responsibility for events or conditions to an individual’s flawed character, rather than to the interplay of contextual or other factors. Such a view can adversely impact the individual’s health to the extent that it fosters feelings of guilt and shame, erodes feelings of competence, self-worth, and hopefulness, and distracts the person from more productive coping responses (Ellison, 1994). Likewise, some groups may encourage or tacitly condone the withdrawal of community support, a factor clearly related to negative outcomes. These two possibilities were seen in one study as the reason that unmarried adolescent mothers who were more religiously active suffered higher rates of depression than those who were less religiously active (Sorenson, Grindstaff, & Turner, 1995). Religion, then, may foster feelings of guilt or shame, erode feelings of hopefulness, competence, and self-worth, and encourage the withdrawal of community support from those who do not conform to social norms. Although correlations between religious issues and negative personality outcomes are only beginning to receive empirical scrutiny, these links have led the American Psychiatric Association to recognize “religious or spiritual problems” as a new diagnostic category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
One of the most widely reported negative impacts of religiosity is the role religion can play in fostering prejudice. Much research has examined the extent to which religious individuals become prejudiced toward certain groups, behaviors, and attitudes. Although many religions place a focus on tolerance, forgiveness, and assisting those in need, they may also seemingly foster the opposite, especially with regard to those seen as transgressing their moral dictates or otherwise outside the select group (see Reimer & Park, 2001). Importantly, many of the more problematic aspects of religiousness may derive less from problematic religious beliefs than from individuals’ attitudes toward religion, whether religiosity indicates an internalized commitment to religion or a more self-serving commitment adopted for utilitarian reasons (see Allport, 1966). Most notably, adolescents who internalize their religion as a means to some other end, such as a way to achieve social gain or personal protection, display more prejudice toward stigmatized groups than do adolescents who adopt a religious orientation that emphasizes the positive value of doubt and open-ended search (Fulton, 1997). Other research confirms that the nature of individuals’ commitment to religion determines the extent to which they adopt positive social orientations; intrinsically motivated individuals reveal high levels of tolerance, especially toward groups viewed as acceptable by their religious community, and individuals who value a more tentative, complex, and skeptical view of their religion reveal even higher levels of tolerance and sensitivity to others’ needs. Extrinsically motivated individuals, those who adopt religious beliefs for self-serving ends, tend to evince more prejudice and intolerance and less caring attitudes toward others (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993).
Efforts to identify the problematic influences of religion and religiosity on adolescents reveal important points. First, adolescents’ own orientations toward religion determine the extent of their religion’s influence. Second, adolescents’ religiosity and religious environments may contribute to negative outcomes, although current empirical research fails to identify negative outcomes from religiosity, at least from mainstream religions and traditional religious involvement, as frequently as some observers would expect. Third, understanding the role of religion in adolescents’ experiences requires a close look at the community, peers, and families in which adolescents find themselves. We now turn to efforts that attempt to understand the nature of the relationship between religion and adolescent outcomes to clarify our current understanding of how religiosity and religion impacts adolescents’ experiences.
The research we have reviewed presents two contrasting images of adolescents and the role of their religious environments in fostering developmental outcomes. One image portrays religiously oriented adolescents as individuals who attend services, believe in the supernatural, trust authority, engage in civic affairs and community service, get involved in school activities, and avoid the usual risks that many adolescents experience as a matter of course with alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and sex. This view typically focuses on adolescents’ own religiosity more than on their religious environments. The other image focuses more on adolescents’ environments than on adolescents’ own religiosity. This approach reveals a much more negative view of religion’s role in adolescents’ experiences and social orientations. Indeed, this second view in many ways essentially presents adolescents as victims of religion. Research, then, typically sees positive outcomes as deriving more from adolescents’ own religious views and sees negative outcomes as deriving more from religious environments affected by religious views.
Understanding the existence of these two seemingly contradictory images sheds considerable light on the manner in which religion actually impacts adolescents’ experiences. Religion undoubtedly plays a complicated role in adolescents’ lives. That role suggests that religion influences adolescents in numerous ways. That is, numerous interrelated factors, notably parents, communities, and peers, simultaneously influence adolescents’ religiousness and developmental outcomes. The extent to which developmental outcomes take positive or negative turns necessarily depends on the contexts in which adolescence experience religion and the influence of other social factors on those contexts. Understanding religion’s impact on the adolescent experience, then, requires understanding how different contexts, and religions’ roles in them, impact adolescents.
The way that families influence adolescent development and religion plays a role in family life demonstrates the need to consider religious contexts. The relationship between parent-child relationships and adolescent substance use has numerous possible ties to religious beliefs and practices. Research suggests that the influence of parent-adolescent bonds on religiosity and its outcomes may be indirect, affecting variables such as adolescents’ religiosity and educational commitment (Huizinga, Loeber, & Thornberry, 1995; Litchfield, Thomas, & Li, 1997). From this view, religious involvement may be encouraged by parents, and the religion may reinforce the family’s teachings and thereby impact adolescent outcomes. Longitudinal studies reveal that positive parent-child bonding and monitoring during early adolescence relate to adolescent religiosity, which has a negative later association with adolescents’ use of alcohol and drugs (Litchfield, Thomas, & Li, 1997). Importantly, studies that control for the amount of parent-child bonding find that religiosity negatively correlates with alcohol and marijuana use. These findings support earlier research that indicated that adolescent drug use appears to be most frequent in families in which parents regularly attend services and adolescents do not (Burkett, 1977). These findings imply that adolescents who are withdrawn or alienated from their parents are most likely to exhibit problem behaviors and that parental control of and involvement with adolescents play important roles in promoting healthy adolescent development. Both parent-adolescent bonds and parental monitoring associate positively with levels of religiosity and decrease the likelihood of adolescent drug use and general delinquency (see Levesque, 2002).
These findings are not surprising, given what we know about factors that protect against delinquency and other problem behavior. Researchers have long noted that parenting style impacts adolescents’ outcomes. Most notably, researchers distinguish between two relationship styles that yield divergent outcomes. Authoritative styles demand age-appropriate, mature behavior from their children and simultaneously foster children’s autonomy in a warm and supportive environment. These relationships encourage children to participate actively in discussions of decisions that affect them, but parents retain the final say. Authoritarian parenting, in contrast, places an emphasis on children’s conformity to parental rules in the context of low parental support. Authoritarian parents expect their children to obey without questioning or reflecting on the specifics of given situations. The former style continues to be viewed as most healthy: adolescents from homes marked by authoritative child-rearing styles achieve more in school, report less depression and anxiety, score higher on measures of self-reliance and self-esteem, and are less likely to engage in antisocial behavior, including delinquency and drug use (Steinberg, 2000). Many studies that assess the values and parenting behaviors of specific religious groups conclude that religiosity engenders authoritative parenting (Brody, Stoneman, Flor, & McCrary, 1994). These findings are even more pronounced for religious or ethnic minority groups, for whom religion or spirituality serves as a central cultural value (Hill, Soriano, Chen, & LaFromboise, 1994), but they generalize to the majority culture and to individuals who view themselves as committed to religious beliefs (Gunnoe, Hetherington, & Reiss, 1999).
The impact of families on adolescents’ religiosity and outcomes seems even more obvious in families marked by violence, dysfunction, and problematic adolescent involvement with religion. A seminal study of 143 adolescents, for example, found that these adolescents’ involvement in Satanism reflected the dynamics of the total family system (Emerson & Syron,1995). In a circular way, the family’s dysfunctional patterns influenced the young person’s involvement with satanic groups; this involvement, in turn, affected the entire family. As adolescents’ involvement in Satanism increased, parental dysfunction also seemed to increase, so much so that, in more than half the families observed, the adolescents directly controlled their families through either overt or covert terrorism. Other research indicates that familial responses to adolescents who break their involvement with alternative religions largely determines the extent to which those adolescents will experience negative outcomes (Robinson & Frye, 1997). Families, then, can play a particularly influential role in adolescents’ religious experiences and in affecting the impact of those experiences.
Although families may provide important social foundations for both positive and negative outcomes, adolescents occupy a much broader world and are highly influenced by extrafamilial forces. Most notably, as has been discussed, peer associations figure prominently in adolescents’ experiences and impact adolescents’ outcomes. Two examples document the link between peer networks and problem behavior. The first area involves adolescent drug use (Ary, Tildesley, Hops, & Andrews, 1993; Bahr, Marcos, & Maughan, 1995; Coombs, Paulson, & Richardson, 1991; Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Needle, McCubbin, Wilson, et al., 1986; Orcutt, 1987). Adolescents who associate with peers who use drugs, not surprisingly, initiate drug use at higher rates than do adolescents whose primary peer associates shun drugs (Elliott, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985; Huizinga, Loeber, & Thornberry, 1995; Kaplan, Martin, & Robbins, 1984). Peers usually introduce a drug and encourage its use; adolescents rarely use drugs if none of their friends do (Khavari, 1993). These findings, however, do not negate the significance of parents, at least to the extent that adolescents who use drugs tend to choose friends who use drugs. That is, longitudinal data indicate that socialization and selection effects are about equal in strength (Kandel, 1980). It seems, for example, that parental monitoring and drug use by family members influence the choice of peers, which impacts the level of adolescent drug use (Bahr, Marcos, & Maughan, 1995; Chassin, Pillow, Curran, et al., 1993). Involvement in a religion provides a network of support and friendship that seems to insulate adolescents from opportunities to use drugs (Bahr, Maughan, Marcos, & Li, 1998).
The second example relates to sexual activity. Spiritually interconnected adolescents may participate in voluntary faith assemblies, which can act as powerful referent groups and influence behavior and promote abstention from risky behaviors. The importance that adolescents give to religion and to spiritual interconnectedness is inversely associated with a history of voluntary sexual activity (Holder, DuRant, Harris, et al., 1999). In multivariate analyses, however, only spiritual interconnectedness, particularly spiritual interconnectedness with friends, independently and inversely associates with a history of voluntary sexual activity (Holder, DuRant, Harris, et al., 1999). It is therefore important to consider how peers, whose selection may be influenced by parents, affect the extent to which religious beliefs influence adolescents’ experiences.
Communities also clearly impact adolescents and shape their religious and secular experiences. Religious communities serve as resources through, for example, their community development, mentoring, and outreach efforts. Religious groups also play a central role in the delivery of social services. While governments may design and fund social programs, nonprofit organizations tend to administer them and increasingly are becoming the local organization that offers health, medical care, food, and educational services (Salamon, 1995). In fact, faith-based organizations provide the greatest source of service provision for adolescents at risk (DiIulio, Larson, & Johnson, 1999; Queen, 2000).
In addition to providing direct services, religious communities support socializing institutions that provide opportunities for adolescents to reach positive developmental outcomes. Three examples are illustrative. First, the structure of religious communities may enhance the welfare of individual community members (Ellison, 1994; Ellison & George, 1994; Welch, Tittle, & Petee, 1991). Emerging research on how adolescents cope with racial and economic discrimination reveals that church attendance, independent of other factors, helps make young black males from high-poverty neighborhoods substantially more likely to escape poverty, crime, and other social ills; religion’s impact is even more powerfully predictive than such variables as peer influences (Johnson, Jang, Li, & Larson, 2000). The links between strong integration into a church community and positive outcomes for African American adolescents seem indisputable (Brega & Coleman, 1999). Other research reveals similar findings for other groups, including immigrant Vietnamese adolescents in low-income neighborhoods, whose ethnic religious communities provide social supports and constraints that encourage behavior likely to lead to upward mobility (see, e.g., Bankston & Zhou, 1995). Research generally concludes that religious participation promotes social adjustment to the host country by providing a solid base of ethnic identification (Bankston & Zhou, 1996). The potential of church going and other religious influences to improve the life prospects and the psychological adjustment of minority youth varies, in part, as a function of the influence of these factors on how young people spend their time, the extent of their engagement in positive structured activities, and the degree to which they receive support from responsible adults (Levesque, 2002). This view renders almost obvious, but still quite significant, the recent finding that the effects of church involvement on adolescents’ educational outcomes actually may not vary much by ecological context; church involvement seemingly predicts equally well (and positively) for students in poor neighborhoods and for those from middle-class or wealthy neighborhoods (Regnerus, 2000). These findings confirm that religious institutions and activities help to integrate individuals into social groups and direct individuals’ behavior by making them subject to group demands and expectations. Deeper involvement in a religious group means greater group integration and thus greater susceptibility to the group’s influence.
The second example involves the influence of religious beliefs and faith-based services on adolescents who are not religious and on the secular services they receive. Throughout U.S. history, a wide variety of religious movements have sought public influence, political movements have appropriated religious resources and symbols, and denominations and sects have alternately sought a public voice and condemned the same (Casanova, 1994). Not surprisingly, research has revealed how religious communities, such as Christian fundamentalist and evangelical groups, have exerted often contradictory influences on U.S. social reform and social policies (see Schaefer, 1999), focusing on issues ranging from capital punishment, abortion, and sexual orientation legislation to welfare reform and divorce law to tax breaks (Regnerus & Smith, 1998; Berg, 2001; Peach, 2002). For our purposes, the increasing involvement of such groups in national and local politics and their growing success at framing social issues, such as sexuality education, in moralistic terms provides a clear example of how religious communities may take influential sociopolitical stances and influence even adolescents who are not members of their communities (Levesque, 2000a). In addition, services offered by religious communities differentially impact adolescents, even adolescents who do not belong to the religious groups providing the services. Most notably, for example, adolescents who view themselves as nonreligious benefit the most academically from Catholic schools (Sander, 1996). Religious communities, then, do more than provide individuals with certain worldviews; religious communities provide institutions that reflect and foster those worldviews.
The role of religion in helping adolescents cope with their ethnicity provides our third example of the powerful influence of religious communities. Research on religion’s role in minority adolescents’ ability to deal with their stigmatization provides a clear example. As noted, African American adolescents who show a strong commitment to their religious beliefs and to their church internalize to a lesser extent the negative attitudes and stereotypes others hold about them and show a more positive adjustment (Brega & Coleman, 1999). These findings complement a long line of research that documents a host of psychosocial benefits among adolescents and individuals who hold a strong sense of ethnic identity (see Roberts, Phinney, Masse, et al., 1999). Given those findings, it should not be surprising to find that research that examined how adolescents deal with belonging to minority religions also provides an important example of the role religious communities play in adolescents’ outcomes. It seems self-evident that belonging to a minority religious group would cause additional stressors and challenges to adolescents already struggling with other normative developmental tasks. Most notably, it would seem that adolescents from minority religious groups would face tensions between cultural assimilation and maintenance of a religious tradition on the one hand and stresses that arise from belonging to a minority religion in a larger Christian culture on the other. Although adherence to minority religious groups undoubtedly engenders tensions, it also provides important coping resources. For example, religiously identified Jewish adolescents are more likely to cope with stress by seeking God’s direction and support, seeking Jewish cultural and social support, and engaging in a spiritual struggle (Dubow, Pargament, Boxer, & Tarakeshwar, 2000). That is, adolescents who are more embedded within Judaism have a more accessible and more compelling set of resources for coping with their ethnic concerns than do Jewish adolescents who are less identified with their ethnic or religious identity. Importantly, these findings mirror those of research into the influence of religious participation on minority adolescents’ outcomes. Religious activities provide more than arrangements of symbols and norms; they also provide concrete social networks that can occupy a central place in the life of a community (see Bankston & Zhou, 1996). Belonging to a religious community seemingly has its benefits; not belonging leaves one to one’s own devices.
Although religious communities themselves may influence adolescents’ experiences, broader community factors also may impact both adolescents’ religiosity and the influence of that religiosity on their behavior. In addition, religiosity may impact adolescents differently depending on their place in society. Sociologists have long noted the existence of racial differences in whether religious affiliation affects fertility-related behaviors. African American teens with no religious ties are at greater risk of nonmarital first intercourse than are those with a professed denomination (Brewster, 1994). This finding has been repeated with rural (Lock & Vincent, 1995) and middle-income African American adolescents (Murry-McBride, 1996). There is, however, no evidence to support claims that religion influences the risk of nonmarital intercourse among white teens (Brewster, Billy, & Grady, 1993). Importantly, race appears to have the opposite effect on contraceptive use; denominational affiliation differentially influences contraceptive use at first intercourse for white teens, but not for black teens (Kahn, Rindfuss, & Guilkey, 1990). Minority status, then, influences adolescents’ experiences differently, depending on adolescents’ religiosity, religious affiliation, and outcomes under study.
Although religion may impact adolescents through familial, peer, and broader community influences, those influences do not detract from the possibility that adolescents benefit or suffer from religiosity simply because religion itself has positive (or negative) effects. Individuals participate in “divine relations” as well as social relations, and divine relations may approximate the intensity of concrete social relationships. Studies now show that divine interaction may enhance individual well-being, including a feeling of empowerment caused by consultation with the divine in everyday life and an expansion of one’s role set beyond the secular social world (Pollner, 1989). Likewise, religious participation may not merely extend one’s secular support network but may lead one to see God as a supportive partner in coping (Pargament, Ensing, Fal-gout, et al., 1990). In this view, it is a personal relationship with one’s God, rather than one with fellow believers, that increases individual well-being. Although the perception of divine support may be rooted in the concrete experience of having other people caring and supportive, perceived divine support does seem to play an important role in helping believers cope with the trials of everyday life (Hertel & Donahue, 1995). Again, however, not all the links are positive. A belief in original sin may be problematic to the extent that it is inversely linked with self-esteem, but this negative effect may be offset by a belief in or a perception of divine grace and forgiveness (Watson, Morris, & Hood, 1988). The possibility clearly exists that we may be influenced by matters some of us simply do not comprehend.
Several authors suggest that the key to the effect of religion on well-being lies in the sense of coherence, comprehensibility, and meaningfulness of reality that religious beliefs, religious communities, and perceived divine support can engender (Ellison, 1994; Pollner, 1989; Williams, 1994; Bjarnason, 1998). This interpretation neatly meshes with recent studies that present religious communities as tightly knit support groups that buffer individuals from negative social and psychological outcomes. Frequent churchgoers report that they have larger social networks, have more contacts with network members, receive more types of social support, and have more favorable perceptions of their social relationships— all of which tend to be associated with positive health (Ellison & George, 1994; Wright, Frost, & Wisecarver, 1993). These benefits are compounded by the manner in which religious communities place moral constraints on behavior in ways that facilitate good physical health, positive family and interpersonal relations, and ethical work conduct and financial dealings and inhibits stress-inducing lifestyle choices (Ellison, 1994; see also Welch, Tittle, & Petee, 1991). Commitment to a religious organization and its goals, such as proper conduct, also may provide a meaning to life and may constitute the type of commitment that makes problem behaviors, such as drug use, less attractive (Merrill, Salazar, & Gardner, 2001). The power of religious matters, then, may derive from the very reason religions exist: to help us understand, and live by, our proper place in the world.
Perhaps the most likely mediator of religiosity and religious environments on adolescents’ experiences is adolescents’ acceptance of the family ideology or identification with the religious community. Adolescent religiosity tends to be similar to parental religiosity (Francis & Gibson, 1993; Gecas & Serf, 1990), and membership in a religious community appears to encourage the development of ties to the conventional order and the adoption of norms and behaviors congruent with social responsibility (D’Antonio, Newman, & Wright, 1982; Hirschi, 1969; Payne, Bergin, Beilema, & Jenkins, 1991). Such norms, explicitly encouraged within most mainstream religions, include self-control, avoidance of substance abuse, empathy, and service to others (Gunnoe, Hetherington, & Reiss, 1999). The greater the salience of social forces that foster adherence to religious prohibitions relating to healthy outcomes, the greater the likelihood of a correlation between personal religiosity and healthy outcomes for adolescents. Several important lines of research support such hypotheses. A number of studies indicate that religiously committed teens are less likely to become involved in drug and alcohol abuse (Bahr, Hawks, & Wang, 1993; Brownfield & Sorenson, 1991). Other studies indicate that religiously committed teens are less likely to engage in sexual behavior or to become pregnant when they are still teenagers (Beck, Cole, & Hammond, 1991; Holman & Harding, 1996; Miller & Olson, 1988). Young women with ties to established denominations are less likely than their nonreligious counterparts to become sexually involved during adolescence and prior to marriage (Forste & Heaton, 1988; Thornton & Camburn, 1989). Moreover, adolescent women involved in fundamentalist religions are substantially less likely to use contraceptives at first intercourse, even though their initial sexual experiences occur at a later age (Cooksey, Rindfuss, & Guilkey, 1996; Forste & Heaton, 1988; Kahn, Rindfuss, & Guilkey, 1990). Adolescents who engage in noncompulsory volunteer work also report positive outcomes, highlighting the significance of other relationships to religiosity. Adolescents who volunteer more report more positive attitudes about school and religion and experience more positive parental involvement in their lives (Forliti & Benson, 1986; Youniss, McLellan, & Yates, 1999). Last, religious students tend to avoid behaviors often regarded as undisciplined and harmful to academic achievement, suggesting a relationship between religious commitment and academic achievement (Brody, Stoneman, & Flor, 1996). These research findings all highlight the different roles families and religious communities play in fostering well-being and the way these institutions interact to prevent disruptive outcomes, as well as to heal and empower individuals in ways beneficial to them and to the broader society (see Maton & Wells, 1995).
The fact that a high level of religious commitment is correlated with other positive effects may lead one to suspect that a high level of religious commitment by adolescents would benefit them. For example, research has shown a correlation between religious commitment and physical health (McIntosh & Spilka, 1990). Religious commitment can enable people to handle stressful events more productively (Pargament, 1990; Seligman, 1991), develop social competencies (Thomas & Carver, 1990), and deal with traumatic loss, such as the loss of a loved one (Balk, 1983; Palmer & Noble, 1986). Likewise, a strong relationship exists between religious commitment and family stability (Filsinger & Wilson, 1984; Shrum, 1980). These findings all help support the conclusion that religion is linked to types of environments that predispose individuals toward particular ends.
Although this analysis again suggests that religious institutions and personal religious beliefs lead to positive outcomes, there still is cause for concern regarding how personal and social influences affect adolescents’ responses to religion. Clearly, social and intrapsychic processes are not mutually exclusive, although religion and religiosity are very personal matters, they are in large part a product of social influence.
Although our review of the literature may suggest that we know much about the influences of religiosity on adolescents’ development and dispositions, we must be careful in light of the important methodological limitations of the research. Although the studies vary in quality, at least four concerns arise repeatedly. The data are almost always based on self-reports, which may bias responses toward more socially approved responses. This may be particularly problematic for research that focuses on adolescents’ self-reports of religiosity and its self-reported outcomes—the methodology that contributes the most data on religiosity’s link to positive outcomes. Self-reports may be especially problematic in this area of research because the studies often deal with matters beyond conscious awareness. In addition, virtually all of the studies are correlational. With correlational studies, causal inferences are unsound; this problem is exacerbated by the fact that adolescence is a short time period, making it more likely that the research measures simultaneously the two variables under study (e.g., religiosity and mental health factors), eliminating the potential for finding causality and suggesting that actually measuring variables at different times may not ever yield results that meet high standards of rigor. Even if causal links were identified, it is important to recognize that statistical findings make broad generalizations that may not apply to particular individuals. Thus, finding statistically significant population-level protective effects of religion does not mean that religion benefits everyone’s development, that religion benefits most people’s development, that religion exerts harmful or null effects on development, or that we understand how and/or for whom religion produces certain outcomes. Likewise, even if we had more longitudinal research that explored predictive links, that research would not be without its own limits, given the typical use of “unique variance” approaches. Such approaches try to identify factors that are sufficiently unrelated that researchers can test how each will predict an outcome independently of other predictors. In reality, however, factors are related to each other; for example, most predictors of delinquency—such as lack of appropriate connections to families, schools, and community groups—are related. Last, the vast majority of studies also tend to use samples from unusual populations (e.g., one religious denomination or sect), which makes it unclear whether findings can be generalized. Despite the massive amount of research that exists, then, we find that not all of it provides useful information on adolescents’ religiosity or on religious institutions and other factors that impact adolescents’ religious experiences.
These limitations suggest that we need better research, but they do not mean that the existing research fails to contribute important and useful conclusions. First, negative findings and inconclusive findings are just as important as positive results: not finding a correlation leads to the appropriate conclusion that no causal relationship exists under examined conditions. Second, establishing a correlational link between religion and another variable means that the evidence is consistent with the possibility of causation, including the possibility that some other variable is causing both religiosity and the second outcomes or that these outcomes cause religiosity. Last, as with other areas of research, findings on religion must be carefully evaluated in a manner that dissects their complexities, rather than make sweeping conclusions. A more comprehensive and particularized review provides the basis for a broader, more differentiated set of conclusions.
Although no analysis has managed to address the different dimensions needed to understand religion and religiosity’s impact on adolescent development, we have seen that several conclusions can be drawn from the existing research. Religion impacts adolescents through a multitude of relationships, including communal, cultural, peer, familial, and even intrapsychic. Precisely how these relationships impact adolescents still remains to be determined, but these relationships reveal three fundamental points.
First, efforts to draw lessons from existing social science evidence must distinguish different ways of being healthy and of interacting with others and must recognize the possibility that individuals may be healthy in some ways but not others. This translates into the need to examine religion’s potential for effecting both positive and negative outcomes. For example, religiosity closely relates, in part, to risk taking, which itself seems to be part of a general disposition resulting in general behavioral practices and cognitive decision making. The finding is not surprising, given the current understanding that adolescents have either high or low risk-taking tendencies, which impact the manner they approach social interactions. As a result, being socialized to be religious may mean being socialized to avoid risks. We already have seen that religious adolescents tend to engage in less risk-taking behavior, for example, delinquent activity. It is important to note, however, that religious doctrine may not necessarily promote risk aversion: many religions encourage risk taking in the form of missionary work, proselytizing, or holding beliefs often at odds with secular or dominant social norms (see Miller & Hoffmann, 1995). Religions’ multivalent roles offer much for consideration. The different outcomes of risk taking suggest much more than the conclusion that religions may help channel behaviors. The different outcomes also mean a need to consider the influence of religious-based social service delivery and advocacy and to consider how religious issues infiltrate adolescents’ everyday interactions.
Analyses also must take into account the different ways of being religious. Religiosity is likely to impact adolescents’ outcomes differently simply because different dimensions of religiousness relate to different outcomes; some people use religion for self-serving ends, while others have a more intrinsic motivation, viewing religion as part of one’s quest for meaning. Differentiating the broad concept of religious involvement into different dimensions highlights links to different outcomes. The extrinsic dimension exhibits a rather pervasively negative relationship to many aspects of mental health and social dispositions, whereas intrinsic religious dispositions tend to be positively associated with many positive outcomes. Viewing religion as a quest characterized by a sense that one is seeking and questioning beliefs as part of an effort to commit to a belief system also is correlated with positive outcomes. Although the research may be seen as tentative, the general emerging conclusion suggests that the last two religious orientations provide the healthiest results, both personally and socially (see, e.g., Hunsberger, Pratt, & Pancer, 2001).
Analyses must also attempt to take into account the complexity of adolescents’ lives. Adolescents have multiple identities, occupy many status positions, participate in a range of role relationships, and move from one context to another on a daily basis. Efforts to understand the role of religion in adolescent life necessarily must consider adolescents’ vast array of relationships. Research has long indicated that it appears to be healthier to have access to, and to move between, a number of independent contexts and role relationships and to embrace separate self-identities (see Simmons & Blyth, 1987) so that failure or loss in one role can be buffered by participation in the other roles. The more positive the environments in which adolescents interact, the more positive the adolescents’ life experiences and outcomes. The social environment in which adolescents find themselves plays a significant part in determining adolescents’ outcomes.
We need to move beyond the belief that parents, peers, communities, or religions alone dictate adolescents’ developmental experiences and outcomes. Like all complex social processes, social forces may eventually yield either positive or negative outcomes. Thus, given the multiple influences on adolescents, it makes sense to worry less about religious beliefs and practices per se and to worry more about the social context in which those practices occur. Although we can draw important conclusions from the literature on religious adolescents’ dispositions, we should not glibly interpret the research to mean that religious adolescents are inevitably compassionate, committed moral beings who do not demonstrate the self-centered thinking characteristic of adolescents. Although reports of positive links between religiosity and emotional health are important in their own right, it remains important not to overstate the findings. A focus on beneficial outcomes without considering other social forces most likely will produce such links, run the risk of overinterpretation, and lead to erroneous assumptions about the place of God, faith, religion, and spirituality in adolescent development. In reality, different social forces foster different dispositions and exert different effects.
More important than documenting associations between religiosity and developmental outcomes is understanding how religion influences adolescents’ experiences. Although understanding these mechanisms requires navigating considerable complexities and uncharted areas of inquiry, the existing evidence suggests important considerations and conclusions. The amount of empirical support for the impact of religion on adolescents is somewhat surprising, and the consistency of the findings is quite remarkable given the diversity of religions and the diversity of individuals’ experiences within those religions, a diversity compounded by adolescents’ cultural and individual differences. Despite the massive differences in individual experiences, it does seem that religion influences adolescents’ general social orientations. Adolescents who strongly identify with religious teachings and traditions are less likely to engage in risk-related behaviors that result in disruptive outcomes; adolescents who fail to respond appropriately to their religious impulses appear to exhibit more negative outcomes. Adolescents who abide by conventional social rules and who live in environments that support adolescents and beneficial conventional social rules exhibit salutary influences.
Just as we now know more about the consequences attached to a failure to abide by religious prescriptions, we can draw important conclusions about the general manner in which religion impacts adolescents’ experience. Religious beliefs and orientations may be personal concerns, but they are in large measure a product of social influences. Accounting for the links between religiosity and adolescents’ experiences means essentially accounting for the nature of healthy socialization and the nature of environments that produce effective outcomes. Although some variation may exist, depending on social conditions, effective environments address adolescents’ needs, provide them with a voice in matters that affect them, and offer hope. The extent to which religions foster positive environments partly determines religion’s impact on adolescents; the extent to which religions in themselves constitute positive environments determines the extent to which particular religions, beliefs, and practices have the most positive impact on adolescents.
Although we have identified important social science findings, it requires a leap of faith to take them seriously. Although research can identify trends, it is certainly not the main consideration for policymakers. Policies, especially those that relate to adolescents and religion, must consider public opinion and existing legal mandates. Although policies must take into account numerous and often competing forces and values, our analysis of the ecology of religious influences on diverse outcomes provides the necessary background for an informed policy analysis that can lead to better policy alternatives in light of public and legal concerns. The next two chapters address these legal concerns, and our last chapter offers a way to integrate them with social science findings.